SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/1/2023 10:32 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Intro to Matthew 24:4-14
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
24:4-14
Message of the verses: “4 And Jesus answered and said to them,
"See to it that no one misleads you. 5 “For many will come in My name,
saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many. 6 “And you will be hearing of
wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not frightened, for those things
must take place, but that is not yet the end. 7 “For nation will rise
against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will
be famines and earthquakes. 8 “But all these things are merely the
beginning of birth pangs. 9 “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and
will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations on account of My name. 10
“And at that time many will fall away and will deliver up one another and hate
one another. 11 "And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead
many. 12 “And because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow
cold. 13 “But the one who endures to the end, he shall be saved. 14 “And this
gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all
the nations, and then the end shall come.”
I want to continue quoting from John MacArthur’s
commentary on the introduction to these very important verses.
“The second indicator that those events are future is
found in Matthew 24:13-14, in which Jesus speaks of believers who will endure
the birth pains to the end. Since the
disciples obviously did not live to the end of the age, the events of chapters
24-25 could not apply to them or to any other believers up to and including the
present time. Because all believers
living then will raptured just before the Tribulation (1 Thess. 4:17), the events
could not apply to any Christian living before that time. They can apply only to those who come to
belief in Christ during the Tribulation, those whose genuine faith is proved by
their endurance to the end (Matt. 24:13).
“A third indicator is the worldwide proclamation of the
gospel (Matt. 24:14). That event absolutely
rules out any time during the apostolic age, when even the Roman Empire was
only partially evangelized. It could not
even apply to modern times, when, despite the spread of the gospel through
modern mass media to most parts of the world, there are still billions of
people who have never heard the gospel.
As implied in Matthew 24:14 and made clear in Revelation 14:6-7, the
future worldwide declaration of which Jesus spoke will be miraculous and
instantaneous.
“A forth indicator is ‘the abomination of desolation
which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet’ (Matt. 24:15). Daniel predicted that just before the Messiah
sets up His kingdom and judges the world the Antichrist ‘will put a stop to
sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who
makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is
poured out on the one who makes desolate’ (Dan. 9:27). That is yet to occur.
“A fifth indicator that Jesus is speaking of a future time is the ‘great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall’ (Matt. 24:21). The terrible events Jesus describes in this message will be the worst of all human history and will occur at the very end of the present age, when God’s full and final judgment is meted out of ungodly men. Jesus is referring to the time predicted by Daniel when ‘there will be a time of distress such as never occurred by the resurrection of the righteous to everlasting life and of the wicked to everlasting condemnation (Dan. 12:1-2).’
There are two more indicators that we will look at in the
next SD, Lord willing. It is good to
remember that the commentary that I am looking at is probably around 40 years
old, and so most of the technology we have in today’s world is far greater than
40 years ago. The church that I go to is
over 180 years old, that is before the Civil War that it began. There have been two different mission
agencies that began in this church and one of them is called Baptist Mid
Missions which is 102 years old. Some
time ago when one of the representatives of that mission came to speak to us he
stated that they are close to reaching every language with the gospel. Another thing is the vast power of the
internet which can help reach people for the Lord. The blogs that I write are actually
translated into many different languages so people around the world can read
them. It is a great pleasure of mine to
write these Spiritual Diaries and I pray each day that the Lord will use them
to bring people into His kingdom, cause believers to grow, to bring revival to
believers, that the Holy Spirit will cause people all over the world to read
these Spiritual Diaries, and one more thing that I pray about is that if it is
the will of the Lord, that the very last person that will receive Christ in the
church age will have that happen after reading one of these Spiritual Diaries. (If is the will of the Lord.) I have been doing these for a little over
eleven years and the Lord, this year has caused more people to read them from
around the world than in the first eleven years that I wrote them, and there is
more people outside the USA that have read them than inside the USA, and that
is a first. All I can say is PTL for
allowing me to be a part of His Church and I thank Him for what He is doing
with something that He caused me to begin many years ago.
12/1/2023 11:05 AM
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